“It was halfway into our anniversary dinner when things turned for the worst, as the camera crew from Mystery Diners rushed through the dining room with lights and mikes to catch a naughty bartender/actor in the act of giving away free drinks for a group of fake diners.”

Hanging out at 7th and Market in front of the check-cashing place in the heart of San Francisco’s corrupt Twitterloin / “Uptown” Tenderloin.

Good times:

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Now I’ll tell you, there will come a time when fencing an iPhone will become less lucrative. You know, the way it’s becoming in New York City. (Right? ‘Cause if you all can’t actually use the iPhone you just bought off of craigslist for cheap, then you all will stop buying them and that will be the end of the bulk of the stolen iPhone market.)

If only SFGov and the SFPD were so “innovative.”

But remember, appointed Mayor “Ed Lee Get’s It Done,” unless he doesn’t, as in this case.

I don’t know how long you’ll be able to watch this one – all the action is in the first part and then it just goes on and on. (“Aagh, I can’t breathe!” “Get off of him!” “Aagh, I can’t breathe!” “Get off of him!”)

Not sure if the shoplifter had an actual iPhone. Seems as if he had, at the very least, some kind product endorsed by Dr. Dre, anyway:

And, indeed, those can retail for up to $350, so one of the security guards got that part right. As far as everything else though, there’s just too much to inventory – this is like a video on how not to detain a shoplifter. (Should you let go of the perp temporarily to show off the booty to sway the crowd? Probably not. I could go on, but, as always, You Make The Call.)

It ended up requiring the attention of both the SFPD and the SFFD. (I wonder if there’s an official report or two on this incident.)

[UPDATE II: I think we’ve come to an accord, via a terse, 13-word email. Hurray! [#bygones] BTW, that’s Jim “The Hammer” Hammer in the background, during the let’s-have-TASERS-in-SF presser. The Hammer was gung-ho for the TASERs on that particular day, but by the following week, not so much. No so much AT ALL. The upshot is that peace officers still don’t have TASERs in SF (unless they’re in the CHP or something), for better or worse. Worse, IMO.]

[UPDATE: Oh, apparently the Jeff Adachi for Mayor campaign recently had a similar issue with a local shutterbug and it ended with the Jeff Adachi campaign no longer using the photo(s) they had no right to use in the first place.]

I don’t know, the digital SLR era for me started a decade ago,* so that’s a while, but I’ll tell you, I’ve never come across anything like this.

I get an email asking me how much I got from the George Gascon for District Attorney campaign for the use of my photos and I’m like, well, nothing?

So I head over to the official website and I see one of my photos, anyway, getting panned (ala the Ken Burns Effect) in some videos here.

Thusly:

So I send out emails to two people with the campaign and there’s no reply, no reply at all.

I’m not a professional or nothing, but I talked with a couple and they said is that this is a straight-up copyright violation and that I should invoice the campaign. (Oh, and that I’m a “wuss”** for “sitting on this.”)

“A special thanks to our gracious partner who has made Outside Lands a reality for the past 3 years: San Francisco Recreation & Park Department. We’d also like to thank the following for their support: Office of the Mayor, San Francisco Police Department, San Francisco Fire Department, San Francisco Entertainment Commission, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority (Muni and Department of Parking & Traffic), all the artists, staff, volunteers, community members and the whole City and County of San Francisco.

Most importantly we would like to thank you, the fan, for the continued support of Outside Lands since the festival’s inception in 2008 and for cementing it as one of the world’s premier music festivals.